


shouldn't have been like this

by behradtomaz



Category: Constantine (TV), DC - Fandom
Genre: Nightmares, john feels really fucking guilty about gary's death, takes place sometime post s1, when will i let them be happy, zed is such a good friend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-10-05 00:37:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17314775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/behradtomaz/pseuds/behradtomaz
Summary: john's never been the type to talk about his nightmares.





	shouldn't have been like this

zed tapped her fingers nervously on the side of her coffee mug as she sat, curled up in an arm chair in the millhouse, waiting for john to come out of his room to greet the day.

she knew he was awake, he had to be. he was the one who had woken her up, after all-the short screams spilling from his room would have been enough to wake the dead. they were almost terrifying, if only because of how absolutely destroyed john had sounded when he made them.

nightmares weren’t unusual, (zed honestly would have been surprised if john _didn’t_ have them, given all the things he’d been through) but the screaming was. he had trained himself to stay deadly quiet when he woke up consumed by terror, and whatever had managed to make him that scared…she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know what it was.

but he was her friend, and he was in pain, and she’d be damned if she didn’t try to help.

a few moments later, john stumbled out of his room, looking like even more of a mess than usual. his hands shook slightly when he closed the door, but he had stilled them by the time he reached zed, forcing himself to act as if everything was fine-or at least as close to fine as things usually were for him. he ignored her concerned look, heading for a bottle of whiskey instead of his usual breakfast, too far past the point of caring to bother with a proper meal.

“john?”

no answer.

“can we talk?”

john paused, opening the bottle and taking a swig, before sitting down in the seat across from zed, not quite able to look at her as he said, “’bout what?”

“last night.”

“no point in talking about it, luv,” he said, trying to put an air of casual indifference in his voice and failing miserably. “just a nightmare, wasn’t even that bad. won’t wake you up again.”

“you were screaming gary’s name, john.”

he froze, the whiskey halfway to his lips, and struggled to keep his face neutral. “was i, now?”

zed nodded, and john slowly put down the bottle.

gary lester. his old friend. one of the ones he had killed.

he tried to remind himself that it had been gary’s choice to take the hunger demon into himself, to make the sacrifice play, that he had done it out of his own free will-but john had manipulated him into doing it, hadn’t he? played him like a fiddle. well, more like an off-key kazoo.

gary was a deadbeat junkie, a man who had been given hundreds of chances, opportunities, advantages, and had squandered them all.

and a better man than john would ever think of himself as.

of course, john figured that was his punishment for killing the man.

knowing that gary had been good, in his core, when it mattered. knowing that he should have been the one to die, not gary. knowing that he never would’ve been able to do what gary had done.

john had held his hand for hours, had sat by gary’s bed as he screamed and writhed, overwhelmed with pain, had watched him fall apart, had felt tears pricking in his eyes that he never let fall as, all of a sudden, gary had stopped moving, had fallen back onto the mattress like a marionette who’s strings had been cut.

it haunted him in his dreams.

the sight was burned into his eyes, appearing every time he thought he could rest, brutal and vengeful.

he had seen worse deaths than that, worse tortures, hundreds of horrors that didn’t hurt him like this one had. it shouldn’t have been like this. he should have been able to brush off the pain, the nightmares, to carry on like he always had, with unhealthy doses of alcohol and nicotine to keep away the darkness dwelling in the corners of his mind.

but john couldn’t do it, couldn’t forget gary lester, couldn’t do anything but watch every time the scene replayed in his head, unending and absolutely fucking unbearable.

he didn’t realize he had been staring off into space, until zed laid a gentle hand on his arm and he jolted in surprise, nearly dropping the bottle of whiskey.

“do you…want to talk about it?” zed asked, her eyes filled with worry as she looked up at him.

ah, zed.

beautiful, kind zed.

she was a mystery to john, even now, when they had been friends for ages and fought side by side for even longer. he didn’t deserve her, like he didn’t deserve chas, but he knew she wouldn’t leave him anyways.

that was the most dangerous part of having friends, he had learned. the loyalty. the care. it was what made them worth having, but it was also what got them killed.

“not really, no,” he replied, ignoring the guilt he felt upon seeing the little bit of disappointment that flashed in her eyes, before it was drowned again in all of the worry. “sorry, luv.”

“you don’t need to apologize.”

they both knew that was bullshit.


End file.
